Low vision individuals often require customization of computer screen interfaces to discern text and images. Customization systems may be built into the operating system itself or may comprise feature-rich, third-party products such as those sold under the MAGIC brand manufactured by Freedom Scientific, Inc., based in St. Petersburg, Fla.
A deficiency in the current state of the art is that of scaling pointing indicia such as a cursor or caret from small to large dimensions. For example, all mouse pointers have a discrete minimum and a common maximum size. The minimum size is a multiple of the system metrics for the mouse pointer. Generally, this metric is a 32×32 pixel square under operating systems sold by Microsoft Corporation out of Redmond, Wash. under the brands WINDOWS 7, VISTA, and XP. However, it is common for a mouse pointer to only occupy a 16×16 square, top-left justified, within this metric.
When the screen is magnified to a high level, such as 16-fold, the mouse pointer becomes pixelated and distracting to the user. Various smoothing techniques may be applied to reduce pixelation, but such processes consume CPU cycles and still lead to imperfect results. A serious problem with presenting a jugged and pixelated pointing indicia to a low vision user is that such flaws may undermine the confidence of a low vision user in her ability to see clearly: the user may be in doubt on whether the flaws are introduced through magnification of the pointing indicia are whether the poor vision of the user is the cause of the perceived imperfections.
Yet another deficiency is limited customization of pointing indicia. Some low vision users have difficulty distinguishing certain colors making it burdensome—or even impossible—to identify and observe the movement of the pointing indicium as it navigates a computer screen. Accordingly, what is needed is a vector-based pointing indicium whose outlining border and body may be independently colorized to enable the low vision users to better distinguish the pointing indicium from the background content of the screen.
Finally, although animation of pointing indicia is well known in the art, animation of a pixelated cursor—especially at higher magnification levels—suffers from the same flaws as described above. Therefore, there exists a need for a method of animating a vector-based pointing indicia.